Weird isn't it? To think that policemen, judges, council officers, and a multitude of other public servants go through such bizarre rituals.
Wearing a shoe on one foot and a slipper on the other, they roll up their trouser leg, bear their chest, are blindfolded and tied with a hangman's noose and, whilst standing on a marble chess board with a dagger pressed to their heart, swear oaths of secrecy, allegiance and mutual aid.

However, the oaths of secrecy sworn by Freemasons sound anything but innocuous. Upon entering the first level of Masonry, an initiate promises to guard its secrets upon pain of "having my throat cut out by the root and buried in the sand of the sea at low water mark... or the more effective punishment of being branded as a wilfully perjured individual, void of all moral worth." This so-called "harmless play-acting" seems remarkably effective in ensuring secrecy. Even those who have ceased to be Masons refuse to speak of its ceremonies and practices, whilst the very few people with experience of Masonry who have dared to speak to researchers have done so anonymously. There is little doubt that retribution for public disclosure is a real threat in the minds of all those who have ever been initiated.
The persistent public impression that masonry provides a conduit of perniciously manipulative influence in the police force finally found direct evidence to back up its concerns in the 1960's, when 12 officers from Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad were jailed for taking bribes from pornographers. All 12 were found to be Freemasons, with one of them, Chief Superintendent Bill Moody, discovered to have helped one of the pornographers to become a fellow Freemason. The integrity of the police force in general took a serious denting from the scandal and non-Masonic police officers weren't keen to take the rap. Public condemnation of freemasonic influence was, however, slow to appear. ALL this is happening now, in America, nationwide.